Breaking Bad Recap: Mike's Out -- Way Out

If Walt could earn frequent flyer miles for the ego trip he takes on this week’s Breaking Bad, he’d rack up enough for a first-class, there-and-back ticket to Bora Bora. However, I don’t think any location on earth is far enough away to escape the fate bearing down on him like Tropical Storm Isaac on the Florida panhandle. As our anti-hero’s head gets bigger and his list of associates grows smaller, let’s review the major events that take place in “Say My Name.”

MIKE’S OUT| Mike, Jesse and Walt ride out to a nondescript desert location, where Mike’s contact Declan is waiting with four other men. Declan’s all, where’s the methylamine? Walt brazenly offers up Mike’s soon-to-be vacant distribution position in their business – but Dec’s operation has to ditch its cook and sell Walt’s meth in exchange. Walter’s swagger is out of control here; in comparing Declan’s crude drugs to his “99.1 percent pure” product, he says “it’s grade-school t-ball versus the New York Yankees” and, just in case they missed his meaning, he says their meth is off-brand cola and “what I’m making is classic Coke.” Why shouldn’t they just kill him right there, Declan muses. Walt doesn’t even blink as he answers, “Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola?” The grandstanding reaches its most ridiculous – not in terms of storytelling, but in terms of you-were-grading-chemistry-tests-and-getting-railroaded-by-your-wife-a-year-ago-buddy – when Walt makes Declan realize that he’s responsible for Gus Fring’s death. “You all know exactly who I am. Say my name,” he commands. And when Declan calls Walt Heisenberg, Mr. White has something approaching a religious moment. “You’re goddamned right!” Dec grudgingly agrees to Walt’s deal and hands over a $5 million “finder’s fee” for Mike (all part of the plan Walt alluded to at the end of last week’s episode), officially ending the curmudgeon’s partnership in This Is A Really Bad Idea Spiraling Out of Control Inc.

JESSE’S OUT, TOO| Jesse wants to talk to Walt about the $5 mil coming his way, but Walt puts him off. Skyler’s waiting when the men retrieve the methylamine tank from where Walt stashed it at the car wash. Sadly, there’s no complimenting of her superior grocery shopping skills or any discussion of frozen lasagna. But there is this deliciously awkward tidbit:

JESSE: (indicating the bug company’s truck) “Vamonos.”

SKYLER: “I wish.”

Later, Walt acts as though Jesse’s never mentioned wanting to leave. He talks about “doubling down” and cooking 100 lbs. of meth a week, and even dangles the idea of Jesse running his own lab. When that doesn’t work and Jesse holds firm, Walt employs his favorite new move: switching from sycophantic flattery to merciless put-downs in no time at all. I shouldn’t have been surprised when Walt – who a moment before had been praising his former student’s cooking skills as “every bit as good as” his own – wasted no time pointing out how little Jesse had going on in life. “How soon will you start using again?” Walt taunts. They killed a lot of people before the boy Todd shot, he reminds Jesse, which means they’re “already pretty much” going to hell. Ya think? But he, for one, refuses to curl up in grief and guilt before he gets there. That! sound you just heard? It was the last little wisp of Walter’s humanity flitting off for greener pastures. I maintain that Bryan Cranston’s ultimate creep-out moment this season happened when he and Skyler were in bed in “Madrigal,” but there’s a close second in this scene when he tells Jesse it’s not wrong to want money and glory and fame. Amazingly well played… and ick. But young Mr. Pinkman spits out a “whatever” and leaves Walt to his fury. And when Mr. White takes on a new pupil – kid-killer Todd – it’s clear that he doesn’t have Jesse’s aptitude for chemistry. “You applied yourself,” Walter wearily tells the bug boy, sounding more like a high school teacher than he has in a while, adding “I don’t need you to be Antoine Lavoisier.” Based on the gumheaded way tries to grasp the cook, Walter, you’ll be lucky if you get Antoine Dodson.

ONE DOWN| Dan Wachsberger, the lawyer who got Mike in to see his imprisoned “guys” a few episodes back, has been making the payments to those crew members via cash in safe deposit boxes that their families later pick up. Good to note: There’s also a large box, and letter, waiting for Mike’s granddaughter Kaylee when she turns 18. Dan’s also plying the bank employee in charge of that area with nummy treats. The DEA searches Mike’s home and finds nothing, but some surveillance of the bank leads them right to Dan in the middle of delivering an illegal payday. The smile on Gomez’ face as he realizes what’s going on is pretty great. (For the record: The bust happens on the same visit where Dan bakes the bank lady cake pops. Also for the record: I have dibs on the pig wearing the cowboy hat.) Later, at the DEA to retrieve the bugs in Hank’s office, Walter hears Gomez tell Hank that Dan’s going to flip and give them Mike. Walt gets in touch with the old man just in time for him to evade the cops, then delivers a go-bag with a fake ID, gun, cash, etc. to where Mike’s waiting in a sunlit field. But Mike won’t thank Walt – in fact, he blames him for the predicament at hand – and he won’t give Walt the names of his crew. That gnaws at Walter like me at a cake pop. (I’m sorry, they just looked really good.) Mike gets in his car to get away but realizes the gun is missing… just as Walt shoots him through the driver’s side window. Side note: Just because you’re going to hell, Walt, doesn’t mean you have to cartwheel in with a flourish. Mike drives off… only to crash into a rock a minute later. The ex-cop makes his way to the river with a gun in his hand and Walt finds him sitting by the water. “I just realized that Lydia has the names. I can get them from her,” Walt says, and I know it’s inappropriate, but that had me laughing. That’s the kind of thing you say to your boss via email, not how you apologize to someone for sending them to meet their maker. Mike tells Walt not to ruin a perfectly nice death scene with his braying. And in a very lovely, sunny tableau, Mike shuffles off this mortal coil… then falls over with an undignified thud.

Big episode, no? Not only has Walter turned to killing his close associates, he’s all but staging a song-and-dance number about how bad he is. What are your thoughts? Did that mini-showdown at the bug company convince you that Jesse is next? Did you get a kick out of Saul’s drawer o’ cellphones? And did you laugh when you noticed that Walt and Skyler were eating frozen meals for dinner? Hit the comments and sound off!

The episode where Mike said he was out was the point where it became obvious Mike was getting a bullet. Too bad he ended up receiving it for not bowing down to the greatness that is His Holy Heisenberg.

There was a certain point in the episode where i just KNEW Walt was going to kill him and i was shaking with nervous energy the whole time waiting for it to happen. Ahhhhh. I love Mike. He legitimately became my favorite character. And his last moments and words were so fitting.

You can give a character a bad ending without them necessarily getting killed or jailed. See The Shield for how to do this. Personally I think if Walt ended up in prison, he’d become the leader of the most powerful gang there somehow. The best bad ending is to have him stripped of everything, the power, the money, the family, then have the cancer come back while he waits to die at some far off point… alone.

I feel like I’m being a little manipulated by the writers into hating Walter… Not that he doesn’t deserve it at this moment but for some reason I’m starting to think its a big red herring. That, at the end, a big reveal will somehow legitimize his behavior and Walt’s end will endear him to the audience again.

Interesting concept, but for me, personally, there is no way they can make me feel sorry for Walt. Too many lines have been crossed. He really is nothing but a narcissistic psychopath at this point who just wants his own way after not getting his own way his whole life. I’m not sure Gilligan is going the way you suggest, but maybe he is. This show does always find new ways to shock me. But I believe Gilligan has made the promise that everyone in the audience will hate him by the end of the series, which tells me nothing good is coming from Walt ever again.

Vince Gilligan has said in interview after interview that the idea for the show is to turn an average man into a monster. You won’t like Walt, and you probably should have stopped somewhere around the time Brock landed in the hospital.

Your ultimate Bryan Cranston creep-out moment happens to be the same as mine. For some reason, that was the moment I started to truly hate Walt. It must have been the rape vibe he was giving off. Poor, poor Mike. I really liked him. I nearly cried when he looked at Kaylee for what he knew was the last time. This was quite a tense episode. Poor, poor Jesse getting screwed over by Walt like that. Part of me was hoping Mike would go beat up Walt and make him give Jesse his money. The drawer of cell phones was my laugh out loud moment of the episode. I haven’t seen near enough Saul this season.
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Kimberly, I like how your reviews about such a dark series can be kind of funny. I totally need that lighthearted unwind after going through such sad episodes. As always, thanks for the great reviews!

I called my mom as soon as the episode was over to tell her, “I can’t believe how Walt killed Mike!” We both love Breaking Bad and I especially am a die-hard fan. However, she replied that Walt didn’t kill Mike, that he missed him at the car window and that when Walt walked up to him by the bay that Mike had shot himself in the stomach. I disagreed and told her that Walt definitely killed Mike because I only heard one gunshot, he crashed the car meaning that he was hurt, and if Mike was just going to kill himself that he wouldn’t have called Walt to bring his bag to him. She replied with, “Well he knew the cops were coming down on him hard, and when he was saw the cops at the park I saw a look in his eyes that looked depressed and sort of ‘at-the-end’,” if you will. She also said Mike had the gun pointed to his stomach and was bleeding from his stomach. IDK. As I was watching the episode I never thought for a second that Mike killed himself after Walt “missed” him, as she put it. He definitely killed him. Mike was not ready to die. He was planning to leave and escape the country and probably would have gotten away with it because he was good at what he did.
However, she did have one point right. Why would the directors and writers want the fans to not be on Walt’s side? By starting out the series, they let us have a look at Walter’s life; your normal everyday family faced with the hardship that their provider, father and husband would possibly die from cancer. We as fans accepted him and his character regardless his “profession” because his life had a dilemma and we wanted to see where his journey with that would take him. I mean, he was raising money for his family to live on after his death. Come on! Now it seems as though, at least I think (according to Lily’s comment) that the fans aren’t on Walter’s side anymore and don’t like him because he has become this killing machine and some of these situations which started out few and far in between have become close together and frequent. Ah jeez… I don’t know. The plot thickens. It’s hard for me to admit or to say that I don’t like Walter but I do and I don’t I guess.
Another thing- The whole thing is Walt’s fault. He kept F-ing up and got on Gus’ bad side and he just had to be the biggest and the baddest. As a result of his slaying of Gus, the feds were able to get insight on the whole operation bi by bit which led to arrests and jail time. In the middle of it all Walt did have to protect himself and kill Gus because Gus was going to kill him in the end anyway so it left him no choice. I would have done the same thing, lol. Still. It goes both ways I guess. Keep watching, Cheers :)

I think you’ve stumbled upon the point of the series though, which is all about watching a person’s soul deteriorate and rot away. We are meant to hate Walt, and many people will have their own places in the story where they start to do that.

Brittany, you’re mom’s an enabler.
Of course Walt shot Mike.
Walt poisoned an innocent kid, he’s made a partner of a guy who shot another kid in cold blood. He killed at least 4 people in the last episode of last season. We are long past the point of the writers wanting us to be on Walt’s side. Walt has gone from the naif to the villain. He is a cold-blooded killer.

And to get serious here, is your mother in an abusive relationship? Does she get a lot of black-eyes and broken bones because she’s “walked into doors” or “fell down the stairs”? You don’t just learn how to make excuses for violent behavior overnight.

Thank you so much for ruining for everyone who had yet to see tonight’s “Breaking Bad.” IMDB posted a link to your article on its front page and even though some of us on the West coast don’t get to see it until 10 PM, we had the privilege of it being ruined for us because you had the obnoxiousness to tell us in your headline that Mike gets killed.

Bravo. You’re such a hero. I wish you the best of luck when you leave movie theaters after you see a film with a twist where you can talk LOUDLY for everyone in the lobby to hear all about what you just saw.

It’s not TV Line’s fault that another website linked it. If you really don’t want to know, is it that hard to stay offline for a few hours? I’m sick of people complaining about spoilers when they are seeking out entertainment sites.

TV Line is on my igoogle page – so the title was the first thing I saw in the morning when I went online. I didn’t intentionally seek it out. So thanks to Ms Roots TV Line will have one reader less. Well done. Bye-bye, TV Line.

While Guest might be having a severe overreaction, he does have a point. This is not the first time someone has complained about ill-conceived article titles or thumbnail pictures from TVLine. No one I follow on Twitter spoils anything except for Michael Ausiello, who does it kind of accidentally. Last night, he posted “[Spoiler]’s out – WAY OUT” and that very clearly told me that someone was going to die. Yes, the writing was on the wall for Mike, but still, that’s really not cool. I feel like they have a responsibility to give boring or generic titles/thumbnails for recap articles to further spare anyone who’s not even looking to be spoiled but just reading about other things. Not everyone has the time or the luxury to avoid the internet entirely until they get the chance to sit down for an hour. That’s not even half as easy as naming this article something like “Breaking Bad: Season 5, Episode 7 Recap – ‘Say My Name'”. It’s a simple, elegant solution that makes everyone happy. That’s not too much to ask for, is it?

WHY would you intentionally click on and read a an article called Breaking Bad episode 7 Re-cap? lol. Your comment is idiotic, Kimberly wrote an awesome blog and she is such a great writer. Grow up. What obnoxiousness. What are you a teenager girl on your period…

You do realize that they didn’t need to click on the link to read the title of the article? The article and title in question was linked on a different website. It was written in such a way that it was clear that someone had died. Granted, it’s not spelled out completely, but pretty close. Yes, they should have averted their eyes to anything Breaking Bad related if they had yet to see the episode, but as of late, TV Line is getting a bad rep for spoiling stuff, even though they could easily avoid doing so. Plenty of people on this site have commented about spoilers that were not obvious before clicking on an article. Both sides have points, so cool it on being such an ass.

I think Mike’s death was the most tragic moment in this TV show. But let’s not forget that Mike was the one who killed many people with no mercy when working for Gus and again it was him who almost shot Walter when found he has moved the methylamine. Mike never liked Walter and if it wasn’t for Jesse, he had killed Walter long time ago. May be if it was a clean shot in head, there wasn’t this much compassion for Mike.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that Mike was a career criminal who likely killed and tortured hundreds of people throughout his life. Mike is – to me – a version of Walt who ‘knew his place,’ who stopped trying to climb the ladder.

The death of the boy has to be the most tragic moment of the show. Completely innocent.

Just saw this online so i’m late to the party here but another way Mike was the better and more honorable man was how he spared the madrigal lady so her daughter wouldn’t find her dead, while Walt poisons a child to spare his life. I don’t think ole Walt would have been that generous if he was in Mike’s shoes… He would have offed her (and probably the daughter too if she would have happened to walk back there)

I think the most interesting part of a lot of these comments is people are so desperately looking for a hero. Mike and Jesse aren’t heroes, though most like them a lot more than Walt. Will viewers see Hank as a hero? I wonder, especially if he brings down Jesse.

As I say every week Breaking Bad is without a doubt the best thing to happen to tv. I’m not really shocked at how many people are starting to hate Walt but I’m not one of them. He just does what he does, love him or hate him, I do believe that he still thinks he is doing this for all the right reasons. I’m sad next week is the last new episode until next year, I know its gonna be another great episode. Hoping it goes out with a big bang.

Anyone else wondering if Jessie or Skyler are gonna get in Walts way??? I think that if he kills any of those two, that will be what it takes to get everyone to truely hate Walt.
Thanks for the great and often funny recaps, I enjoy them every week.

“I do believe that he still thinks he is doing this for all the right reasons.”
Are you serious????
Walt’s is responsible for (at a minimum) 9 murders he personally committed or ordered. Indirectly, he’s responsible for over 100 other deaths, his brother-in-law’s shooting & his partner’s girlfriend’s death.
He poisoned a 10-year-old kid!
And, oh yeah, he’s a METH DEALER!
He may have started with a plan to secure his family, but now he’s in it for no one but himself.
Walt is as evil as it gets.

This show is so well done. One of the best ever, and in this case, I believe 8 or 10 more remaining episodes can probably maintain the excellence, without the letdown in quality most shows suffer when the writers just run out of gas. Here, we are running out of familiar characters who made things so interesting. Gus, now Mike. Is Jessie next? I think so. Skylar will survive. Todd is obvious trouble. Walt will be threatened by him, but outsmart him towards end of next season. I see Walt going away for his crimes, thanks to Hank. Walt’s ego will shrink back to its pre-Heisenberg size once he’s behind bars. Just love this show. Will miss it.

Your all wrong I still like walt he went from being a frightened mouse to someone you don’t screw with. I believe his biggest mistake to date was informing his whining useless, spoiled,cheating bitch of a wife. I a team kill skylar !!!!!

I noticed. :)
I commented on that on another website, or it might have been this one? I can’t keep track of my surfing, lol. Someone else piped up about the look on Hank’s face when he was looking at some of the photos they took while trailing Mike.. I bet Hank becomes in the know by next week. That was the scene that stopped me in my tracks. Hank is hours away from knowing, one to be exact.

I noticed the camera and that’s the reason I found my way to this site, looking to see if anyone else picked up on it. Yay :)

Daniel: The scene where Walt removed the bug from Hank’s office, when Hank returned the camera angle switched to a weird “CCTV” type location and it looked like perhaps the entire thing had been caught on film.

I think this was a red herring just to amp things up a bit but we’ll see :-)

I totally agree with Sonya! I like Heisenberg side of Walt more than what he was before. He had many reasons to kill Mike. And yes! Skyler is the most disgusting character of this show! She is the number one enemy of him. I believe he has save the ricin for her.

Ahh I don’t know, as much as an evil person Mike was it’s sad to see such a great character go. Anyone get the idea that Skylar will hook up with Jessie just to piss Walt off? Seemed like he was checking her out and Jessie is a MILF lover lol.

Getting a little tired of Walt’s ego, it’s getting old and is forced down our throats weekly, OK I get it already. I just hope we are not entering shark jumping territory.

I think we’re all forgetting the what really ruined everything with Gus: Jessie’s emotional response to Gus’ people using children, and walt’s emotional decision to save Jessie and have Gale killed at the end of season 3. If Jessie had kept his head down or if Walt had let Gus kill Jessie then Walter could have kept cooking for Gus like a good employee. Also, skylar took all of walt’s getaway money and gave it to the man that she had cheated on him with, killing walt’s last attempt to save his family and himself. Are Walters actions and attitudes extreme and somewhat distasteful? Absolutely. But would he be doing what he’s doing right now if the people he depended on hadn’t inadvertently screwed him over? I think not.

But saving his family is not what is driving him. Remember last week or the week before, when he said he wanted to build an empire? He has always felt that he was cheated out his rightful place atop a billion dollar corporation that he founded and sold for $10,000 because he had cheated on his first wife. He may have started cooking meth because he wanted to leave money to his family, but as he grew more successful at it, his inner rage at his life’s failure’s took over and made him into a power hungry egomaniac.

I have faith in these great writers. Right now we all hate Walt and what he has transformed into. What an ending it would be if Walt somehow sacrificed his own life to save Jesse. By then Jesse would find out all the evil things Walt/Heisenberg has done, but Walt makes it right by saving Jesse and Walt dies in the process. That’s what I can’t wait to see, how will the writers end this saga? Will Walt be punished for all the wrong doing? Ending in a depressing sigh, or will he show some humanity and somehow make things “right” before the show’s end? In the words of the great Bart Scott…CAN’T WAIT!

What you want is what an ORDINARY show would do. The flawed hero/villain would sacrifice himself to in some way to redeem himself, despite his many sins, like the Terminator in “Terminator II” lowering himself into the blast furnace. This is not how “Breaking Bad” operates. Give me an example of the show EVER being “ordinary.” That is why it is so extraordinary, like nothing ever on television except for the early years of “The Sopranos,” a series that declined at the end and finished on a sour and unsatisfactory note.

It was a fine episode, but for the first time I am starting to dislike “Breaking Bad.” I have been upset for months that an arbitrary end has been set for the series.

It is, without doubt, the best show on television. I have been watching TV since Uncle Miltie, and I think that it is the best show EVER on TV (at least, since the Moon landing). So I am upset for that reason.

I would think that the show could go on for several more years with the storylines available with Hank, Marie, Skyler, and Saul Goodman (a wasted asset this season, I think).

This bring me to my second complaint. Like “The Sopranos,” the other nominee for “Best Show Ever on Television” (but in second place), a show that was never the same after Adriana’s murder and really hit the wall after Christopher was murdered (Tony murdering his surrogate son?), I fear that “Breaking Bad” is consuming its characters.

Gus Fring’s exit was memorable, but he was irreplacable and has been missed this year. I fear that Mike’s demise will be the same, with the exception that his death was totally unnecessary and gratutious. Walt is becoming too much and too obvious a monster TOO QUICKLY. Gus Fring was a wonderful villain because he SEEMED so ordinary, the local small businessman (who contributed to DEA charities), who was really a drug kingpin. But Gus Fring always had Mike to do his killing (except for Victor, an object lesson) when it became necessary (murder being just a normal business technique of the “meth” business).

The chess game between Gus Fring and Hank and the DEA should have been allowed to play out, with the local charitable involvement of Gus Fring obscuring his drug dealing. I guess that what I am saying is that the entire story seems too fast. Like the plate of eggs at Denny’s in the first episode, it seems not quite “well done.”

How did Walter White go from lecturing bored students in a high school chemistry class to “Tony Montana” buying a machine gun in the parking lot of Denny’s in just two years (“Breaking Bad” time)? “Breaking Bad” has killed off two of its most compelling characters, Mike and Gus, althogh Lydia seems promising (a twitchy woman, but one with enough moxie the want to talk about payoffs with a gun to her head). And what of Madrigal? Are they “dirty” or not?

Is Vince Gilligan tired of “Breaking Bad” and itching to move along to the next project? I can understand ending the series before it “jumps the shark,” but I cannot understand ending it because of an arbitrary deadline when there are so many stories left to tell.

What will happen when Hank identifies Heisenberg and Marie tells him that Walt payed thousands of dollars for his rehab? What will the DEA think when it discovers that Hank’s rehab was paid for with drug money? Will Hank try to defend himself with the argument that he THOUGHT the money was just proceeds from ILLEGAL gambling. Will the DEA think Hank has been protecting Walt’s identity?

We should see Walt as the new Gus Fring — local car wash owner and pillar of the commlunity — just a Hank begins to fig;ure out who Heisenberg might be. With the problem of the rehab money — which Marie tearfully confesses — will Hank really go after Heisenberg?

I love Walt. He is the perfect monster! I can’t wait to see how he deals with each new situation he truly is a mastermind. His genius was definitely revealed when he poisoned Brock and killed Gus. Gilligan did an amazing job of hiding Walt’s “brainstorming”. I don’t how anyone can root against Walt because he is the most capable and intelligent “protagonist” in a long time.

One aspect of Mike and Walt\’s last scene together really bugs me. Mike tells Walt that they had a good thing going except that Walt\’s ego got in the way. That\’s not true and so unlike BB to miss it! Walt HAD to kill Gus or he\’d be dead himself. He got himself into that situation by killing men that were going to kill Jesse. This is also a point that Jesse conveniently forgets through most of season 4. Even Walt\’s despicable act poisoning Brock only occurred because Walt\’s life depended on it. It seems like in its rush to turn Walt into pure evil, Gilligan is glossing over some of Walt\’s more understandable motivations.

Yeah I think it was when he ran over the two street dealers when Gus decided he must die, and that was done to protect Jesse. And once Gus decided Walt must die, everything else was inevitable–either Walt or Gus had to go. With Gus’ death, it then seemed inevitable the 10 names would fall into police hands so might would ultimately be screwed.

I agree Walt is going down a bad path, and i really liked the character Mike, but honestly i feel i gotta stick up for Walt here. Since they met Mike has never liked Walt. He has always been standoffish and downright rude to Walt. Walt plants the bug for Mike(i know for himself as well but, the main reason was because Mike had the DEA all over him.) All Walt did in past seasons was try to save Jesse from getting killed by Gus and it gets turned around on him by Mike and Gus. From my point of view Mike has never given Walt a fair chance. The man makes it quite obvious every time he was around him he didn’t like him. Walt again trys to make an effort with Mike and SAVES HIM FROM LIFE IN PRISON, goes out of his way to get him a bag so he can ride away in the sunset, while i might add a man(Dan the lawyer) who Mike was nice too all the time flipped in a heartbeat.What does mike do after all Walt has just done for him? he says goodbye Walt without even a thank you. Then when Walt asks for one(rightly deserved) He gets attacked that it was his fault all of it even what happened with the whole Gus situation which is not true. idk im not saying mike deserved to die i liked his char, but with his treatment of Walt I don’t believe anyone should be angry or surprised he did what he did.

I was trying to reason out why Walt shot him. Was it just revenge for not giving up the list of names and/or Mike saying everything was his fault, or did Walt think he had the names on him somewhere and he could get them off Mike’s corpse?

Also, if Mike hadn’t insulted him and had given up them names, what would Walt have done with Mikes revolver?

Poor caring Mike, if he had done what Lydia wanted and whacked the 9 guys, he would’ve lost the first 2 milion (from Gus) but probably would’ve held onto the 5 million. (The lawyer made several trips–he wasn’t caught the first time.) BTW, why not just hide it in the desert rather than a bank where there are witnesses?

If you will remember, Walt first got into trouble with Gus when he ran down the drug dealers with his car to save Jesse a fatal shoot-out with two killers. He got Gus to overlook it as a “hiccup” in a profitable relationship, but Gus brought in Gayle as the assistant chemist. Jesse was out as an unreliable junkie and irrating moralist (“They use kids to do their killing!”). Eventually, after learning that Gayle was a gifted chemist in his own right, Walt realized that he was training his replacement. Gus went to Gayle with the ruse that Walt was mortally ill and needed to quit the lab. Walt’s replacement (and death) was imminent. He knew that his only course was to kill Gayle so Gus could not replace him. Yes, Gayle’s death was lamentable, but Gayle had AGREED to replace Walt, and probably knew that Walt was going to die by unnatural causes. He was not innocent. With Walt back in control and Gayle dead, Gus murdered Victor as an object lesson to Walt and Jesse (cross me again, and this could be YOU) and to punish Victor for being seen and attracting public attention at the scene of Gayle’s death. Walt, using his new power, force Gus to agree to bring Jesse back as assistant with Walt guaranteeing his satisfactory performance.

You forget that Gayle originally told Gus that he needed several more “cooks” before being able to take over. Gus demurred and said that Gayle needed to take over sooner — almost immediately. At that point, Gayle had to suspect that the “health reason” was a ruse. By agreeing to move Walt out so fast, Gayle knew that something was up, and it was not going to be good for Walt. Gayle realize that it was more important to Gus to move Walt “out of the way” quickly than to insure a successful “cook” or that Gayle could perform as efficiently as Walt.

Am I the only one who likes walt anymore? Personally I have always liked the evil guys. I liked Guss and I like the new I am the boss Walt. I hate Jesse he is such a pansy and a push over. I love those who see power and go for it.

Walt is NOT a monster! He is a true PROBLEM-SOLVER. He is confronted by a problem, gnerally not of his own making, and finds the solution that works best. True, his solutions do turn out monstrous, but they do work (if only temporarily) and the fact that they do turn out monstrous is not always his fault. If Walt IS a monster through his solutions, we must also consider Harry Truman to be even more monstrous for his solution to the problem of ending the war i.e.the atom-bombing of 600,000 people at Hiroshima…

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This show has a lot of good lessons. Pay attention in school and learn chemistry, as you never know when you will need to take down a big drug king pin. Walter’s character is almost a great case study, as he goes from mild mannered teacher to becoming the best meth producer setting higher standards for the drug market. He sets out trying to give his family something to live off of after he dies, however, I think it is about “control”. Control over his life to not let the cancer be the thing or his wife that tells him when to roll over. Breaking Bad has such an awesome cast.